Ender Pearl

The Ender Pearl is a new item in the 1.8 update and is sometimes dropped by Endermen upon death. Currently this item has no use yet. These pearls can be commonly found in bodies of water "naturally" as Endermen will occasionally walk into water and die there from water damage.

Future Use
In future versions of Minecraft it will be possible to throw the enderpearl in order to teleport to the impact location. However teleporting with ender pearls will only work in survival and hardcore mode and will result in 5 falling damage.

Trivia
Because blocking with a sword halves fall damage, and the upcoming teleportation ability of the Pearl causes fall damage, it will most likely be possible to reduce damage taken from teleporting by blocking before the thrown pearl impacts with a block.