Soul Sand

Soul Sand (also known as Slow Sand) is a block only naturally found in The Nether.

Obtaining
Soul sand can be mined with any tool, or without a tool, but shovels are the quickest.

Natural generation
Soul sand is usually found near large bodies of lava in large veins in excess of 100 blocks. It is also found naturally in Nether fortresses, in the Nether Wart room.

Usage
Soul sand slows the movement of any mob or player, and causes them to sink slightly into the block while walking on it. Its slowing effect is increased when placed in water, or above ice, packed ice, or slime blocks.

Soul sand can prevent zombies and skeletons from burning under certain conditions. If you add glass above their head and prevent them from jumping, they will not ignite.

In old versions of minecraft soul sand can be used to suppress the impact from boats when colliding to it at the angle of approximately 6° to 174°. In current versions it insta-kills the player (technically if done within seconds of getting in the boat it won't. When bobbing every downward motion adds to the "distance fallen" without the upward motion canceling the fall like it should. Same reason animals suspended off the ground with leads die if they touch the ground after bobbing for awhile).

Growing Nether Wart
Soul sand is used for growing Nether wart, a primary base ingredient for many varieties of potions. Nether wart is planted on soul sand (like seeds on farmland), and at full maturity produces multiple Nether Wart when harvested.

Withers
4 blocks of soul sand are used in the construction of a Wither.

Trivia

 * The first appearance of this block was on Notch's blog.
 * Because soul sand is not as high as a full block, standing near lava while on soul sand will set you on fire.
 * If a water current is pushing you diagonally against a wall and Soul Sand is the block adjacent to your head when the current ends, it will cause you to jump.
 * In the code, Soul Sand is called "hellsand".
 * If snow or carpet is over soul sand, the effects of it being a partial block are avoided, as you will be walking on the cover block, not the soul sand.
 * Due to the ability to reset the Nether in the Xbox 360 edition, soul sand is renewable in that edition. Although you can reset the Nether in the PC edition by deleting the DIM-1 folder in a Minecraft world file, some may consider this cheating.
 * Soul Sand suspiciously seems to have 3 faces on the block.