Sand

Sand is an environmental block that can be used to make glass. Sand has a single texture that is put on all six sides of the block. A notable fact about Sand is that if there is no block below it, it will fall until it lands on the next available block, thus making it one of two blocks which gravity applies to (the other being gravel). This will happen even if the block of sand is attached to a Sticky Piston, as the piston will only stick to it when retracting the block. Sand can be found in large quantities in certain areas of the map, especially in Desert biomes. Beaches that appear by lakes or by the ocean can also be made of sand up to four blocks deep, extending down to the Stone layer. Sometimes, Cavern tunnels branch up underneath Beaches or sand plugs at the bottom of lakes. Sand is usually supported by Sandstone blocks, but natural floating Sand can be found due to a map generation glitch. It is also possible to find a seed with large amounts of floating sand.

Sand can be mined easily by hand, although using a shovel is faster. Sand gives resources when mined with any tool. Sand has a very low block resistance. When Sand is being affected by gravity and falling, it exhibits a smooth falling animation. If falling sand lands on a mob or the player and covers their head, it will suffocate them until they successfully destroy the block, move out of the block or die.

A Sand block can be smelted into a Glass block. Four sand blocks are used in the Crafting recipe of TNT together with 5 Gunpowder. Four sand blocks may also be used to create sandstone.

If falling Sand lands in the space occupied by a non-solid block, (such as Torches, Steps, Minecart tracks, and Redstone), it will disintegrate into a sand resource block. However, If a piece of sand falls onto a cobweb it will slowly fall until it has gone through it completely, or until it touches the ground, at which point it will turn into a resource block.

Power-mining
If mining a large column/pillar of sand, a good way to accomplish it is to dig under the stone or dirt that it is resting on. Under that dirt or stone, place any partial block (such as a torch or slab). Mine the dirt or stone and the column falls into the placed object, quickly destroying the sand. This can also be used to mine Gravel.

Cofferdam mining
If large quantities of sand and sandstone are needed the ocean floor is a great source of both of these.

To create a cofferdam find a place in a large lake or ocean that is only one or two blocks deep and fill in that spot to just be above water level. Then dig a pit inside so that the water can't get back in. With a large enough pit a large chest can be filled with sand and sandstone fairly easily.

Current Uses

 * Can be used in the construction of Airlocks and the creation of mob suffocation traps.
 * Can be used in building but Sand is affected by gravity so if you use it in building be careful of using it as a roof. Sandstone is a preferable alternative to Sand in building.
 * Sand is also an good scaffolding alternative to dirt. It is quicker to remove and due to its ability to fall when placed, can be used to build from the bottom up while the player remains at a higher elevation.
 * A good way to use sand in scaffolding is to make automated collapsible scaffolds. These are created by placing a torch directly upright on a surface and placing sand or gravel directly above it. After a scaffold of sand or gravel has been built on top of this, the player can collapse the scaffold by breaking the bottom block of sand. This causes the sand above it to fall onto the torch, breaking it. This is far easier than manually removing scaffolds of sand or gravel by using a shovel.
 * If put on top of the wall of your house, and a creeper explosion removes the supporting wall, the sand fall and create a temporary wall until you can replace it.
 * As of the 1.8 Pre-release, Sugar Cane can be planted on sand.
 * Used to make:
 * Glass
 * Sandstone
 * TNT
 * Airlocks

History
Sand has been available for use since Classic Mode. During that time, Sand blocks were rare and only appeared naturally in one block-thick beaches (usually by water or in the middle of a landscape). These beaches were always level and below Ocean level. Sand instantly appeared at the lowest point it could go when it is when placed above an air block without any sort of falling animation. Destroying a pillar made from sand from the bottom would cause the sand to disappear from the top first. These attributes were present until the release of Infdev.

Map editors could be used to create floating Sand, although the server would crash if the Sand was affected from its state.

Before Beta 1.3, generated sand did not have Sandstone under it, and if a cave spawned below sand, then floating sand blocks would occur until one of the blocks was updated.

Trivia

 * In classic, if the player is next to a set of blocks and places 2 sand blocks above them, using the side of those blocks, they will end up inside of those blocks, and notice the internal texture is identical, but darker than regular sand. Like most blocks, they are also hallow. The same bug happened in gravel.
 * An old glitch in Classic mode allowed players to raise the height of a fluid block by placing Sand over it. The Sand would stay suspended in mid-air until it was broken. When broken, a fluid block corresponding to the type below the sand would appear where the block was. The suspended fluid block would remain immobile until a block was placed next to it, causing a flood.
 * If a block of sand has snow on it and is made to fall, the snow is destroyed and will not drop a snowball.
 * Before the Beta 1.8 pre-release, players would always spawn on sand in single-player Survival mode.