From battery covers to bird houses

This nesting box was once a Chevrolet Volt battery. It was designed especially for the endangered scaly-sided merganser in China. A few months after it was installed, a merganser hen and her eleven chicks moved in.

General Motors has made a lot of these, and they have lasted some very harsh winters and many squirrel attacks. The old batteries came from prototype cars, were damaged in assembly, or were used during training exercises. Instead of sending them out to a landfill, GM reuses them to provide shelter for bats, ducks, and birds.

The project was inspired by GM global waste reduction manager John Bradburn's personal experiences with nature. John, who grew up building nest boxes in his youth, said: "Once I saw the Chevy Volt battery cover in our plant, I knew it would make a good nest box. To test the idea five years ago, I built a prototype and within two weeks, I had a hen hooded merganser nesting in it."

I don't think there's an old battery cover lying around here somewhere, but I hope I can create something really nice for the chirping dozen of sparrows that always come around my front yard to hang out, feed and play.

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Check out this insane music box powered by 2,000 marbles

The brainchild of Swedish musician Martin Molin, the Wintergartan Marble Machine , is a bizarre music box that allows the user to play tunes using a hand crank and 2,000 steel marbles. The Rube Goldberg'esque contraption features a vibraphone, bass, drums, cymbals and other instruments that play a score programmed into a 32 bar loop comprised of LEGO Technic parts. It's mesmerizing, and you can watch how they built it over here . [h/t: MailOnline ]

Of birds and tats

Larry Bird really doesn't like that mural of him which featured the three-time NBA MVP in a blue Indiana State jersey with tattoos all over his body. "The Great White Hope" is now trying to get it altered, and had his reps reach out to graffiti and street artist Jules Muck to do so. As WISH reports , soon after Jules completed the piece, she was contacted by Larry's lawyer asking her to do something about it, "citing unauthorized promotional value to her brand" and to the six trademarks owned by the 62-year-old former Celtics star. Larry's issue with the artwork was the tarnishing of his image and his 'brand' by affixing tats to his face, arms and neck. Jules meanwhile, said she never intended to offend the basketball legend. The image that inspired the mural came from the November 1977 Sports Illustrated cover story in which Larry was referred to as "College Basketball's Secret Weapon."

Oil paintings that look like watercolors

Julian Meagher is an artist from Sydney who paints watercolor effect with oil. His paintings often revolve around Australian masculinity, juxtaposed by pop-culture references. Julian has an interesting back story. He's been a full-time artist for ten years, but prior to this he worked briefly as a doctor. The first few years was tough for him, and there were times he thought he should have sticked with his original profession. "It still feels weird to say I'm an artist," he told The Sydney Morning Herald . "You say that at a dinner party and you get weird looks. People think being an artist is a romantic, alcohol and passion-filled job. But it's not, and the idea of people seeing my work still scares me." Julian is a twice recipient of the New Work Grant from the Australia Council of the Art and has held solo exhibitions across Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Miami and Los Angeles. Be sure to check out his website for ...

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