[en] Neutrons and protons are the main building blocks of atomic nuclei and neutrons have been used to probe nuclear structure since the pioneering days of nuclear physics. As strongly interacting hadrons they have a high probability of reaction and, being uncharged, they are unaffected by the nuclear Coulomb field. Neutron scattering for example has been used to determine nuclear sizes and shapes. However the strong interaction inhibits the neutron from penetrating the surface skin of the nucleus and to gain information on the interior a relatively weakly interacting probe such as a photon or electron is superior.As the energies of electron accelerators have increased, shorter distances may be probed, until at a photon momentum of ∼200 MeV/c the reduced wavelength is 1 fm, roughly the dimension of the neutron or proton. From this point one starts to become sensitive to the internal structure. Until recently most experiments have concentrated on the proton as a hydrogen target is experimentally straightforward. There is of course no free neutron target, but with an improved understanding of how nuclear binding affects the neutron embedded in deuterium or helium-3, these materials may be considered as effective neutron targets. The extra information obtained from examining an up-down-down-quark neutron, as opposed to an up-up-down-quark proton, will be vital to achieve a full understanding of the ways in which elementary quarks and gluons interact to make composite hadrons. New results from the MAMI accelerator in Germany are presented and an extension of these measurements at Jefferson Laboratory in the USA is previewed.As well as being pivotal to the development of fundamental nuclear physics, neutrons have immense technological importance. Many of the early neutron scattering experiments were driven by a need to understand nuclear fission processes for power generation or weapons production, but neutron beams have also been widely used in medicine for the treatment of cancerous tumours. Nowadays photon-beam radiotherapy is more common, but neutron photo-production constitutes a significant source of secondary dose received during a course of treatment. The programme to measure these effects at Lund in Sweden is described, along with methods of calculating neutron dose in tissue using nuclear-physics techniques originally developed to obtain the response of neutron detectors