Shears

Shears are a tool mentioned by Jeb on Twitter and are included in Beta 1.7. They are able to quickly remove wool blocks, and are the only reasonable way to get wool from sheep by right-clicking them. Shears are also a legitimate way of obtaining placeable leaf blocks by left-clicking (which may be used for garden decoration like hedges).

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 * The tweet revealing Jeb's work on shears is written in Swedish "Pirate language", and actually says "Jag jobbar på shears nu", which translates to "I'm working on shears now".
 * Shears are the only reasonable way to acquire wool from sheep. The main reason for this is an upcoming plan to have animals remain more persistent in the world, necessitating wool regrowth on sheep (and therefore, shearing).
 * Many players use leaf blocks to create good-looking hedges for gardens etc. With the introduction of shears, players are able to obtain leaf blocks easier in-game without cheating, or digging ditches to plant trees in.
 * At first the plan was to make shears defuse TNT. However, Jeb dropped this shortly after deciding to let one detonate TNT only with redstone or fire.
 * Punching a sheep doesn't yield wool since this item was added. Killing it yields 1 wool block, however.
 * Breaking a wool block with a shear is very fast, and won't damage the tool.
 * Shears can be used to destroy cobwebs, string will be dropped instead of cobweb though. It will take about half a second to mine.
 * Leaf blocks currently decay if they are placed down (unless placed within 4 blocks of a block of wood).
 * Torches can no longer be placed on leaves as of Beta 1.6. Torches attached to leaf blocks prior to 1.6 are unaffected.