1. What about support for cron-like periodic events? Maybe something like cron.yaml in Elastic Beanstalk, but serverless.
2. Does Java support means, that it will be possible to write lambdas in any JVM hosted language, like for example Clojure?
2. Yep. Initially, you'll have to include the Clojure runtime as a library in your ZIP file, so it will look to Lambda like a Java function. Then assuming there's interest, we'll promote it to a first-class experience in the console and API as a language of its own at a later date.
R would be huge for statistical computing, which Lambda holds a lot of potential for -- research would never be the same. Lua would be fitting/appealing just because of its speed and small runtime. The others seem to hold relatively happy spots on TIOBE and in Stack Overflow tags and would fit the Lambda model well.