I knew that Asparagus had this effect, and I knew that some people couldn’t smell it.

I didn’t know that there were some people who did not have this effect happen to them.

And I didn’t know the names of the specific chemicals involved.

Although, I did think that the chemical they added to natural gas to give it that unique smell was called Ethyl Mercaptan, not what was stated in this story.

Ethyl mercaptan is just another name for ethanethiol. So both you and the story are correct.

I think most of us knew this?