Writing about what you don't know

Of course, not all the research makes it into a novel. I write fiction, not text books, so the last thing I want to do is swamp readers with details, authentic or not. But I never discard anything, having found that it may well come in useful further down the line. And even if not, I've still learned a little more about our physical world than I knew before. Such as the fact that, at certain times, a decaying corpse can smell like freshly cut grass, or that decomposition produces a substance also used in the manufacture of perfumes. Which actually did make it into the latest book.