Umm, I'd like to give the scientists involved a benefit of the doubt. The probability that they don't know what they're doing is much lower than the probability that a popularized article about their study is incomplete and/or inaccurate.
Well the actual experiment was awesome - full credit for that.
I just don't buy that you need to explain it using virtual photons that bounce of the mirror.
They do write:
"A mirror moving in a finite EM field then losses energy as the screening currents will emit EM radiation, as in an antenna."
And then say you need vacuum fluctuations to explain it still happening without an EM field. And explain it as the vacuum having a random EM field that is acting on the mirror.
I guess that's not quite the same as "virtual photons bouncing on a mirror". But since a charged mirror requires no extra field, and since their mirror basically is charge, I really don't see the need to bring in virtual photons here.
The actual paper is available at arxiv and is quite readable: http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.4714