The threadlike process of a neuron which conducts nerve impulses from the cell body to the neuron's ending (bouton) where it is transmitted via a synapse to another neuron, muscle or gland. Syn. nerve fibre (when it is sheathed). See neuron; synapse.
The Silk Road was a trade route that went from China to Eastern Europe. It went along the northern borders of China, India, and Persia and ended up in Eastern Europe near today's Turkey and the Mediterranean Sea. Not all that was traded along the Silk Road was good. 2  It is thought that the bubonic plague, or Black Death, traveled to Europe from the Silk Road. 3  Very few merchants traveled along the entire route. 4  Goods were traded at many cities and trade posts along the way.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the German geologist, Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen, named the trade and communication network Die Seidenstrasse (the Silk Road), and the term, also used in the plural, continues to stir imaginations with its evocative mystery. Silk Production and the Silk Trade. Silk is a textile of ancient Chinese origin, woven from the protein fibre produced by the silkworm to make its cocoon, and was developed, according to Chinese tradition, sometime around the year 2,700 BC.